In the Beginning

My good friend Katie posted her love story on her blog (inspired by another blogger) and challenged anyone reading to do the same. I'm in need of some blog updates anyway, so I'm now writing/typing down our story for you to enjoy and posterity's sake. But I have to back up the story just a little bit...
I'd just turned 26 and moved from Salt Lake City to Northern Virginia. I was attending the singles ward, with gobs of attractive and talented single women and very few men for us to pick from. One Sunday the bishop's counselor and wife shared the story of how they met. It was charming, they were in college, she introduced him to the church, three years later he was baptized. They both served missions, came back and were married. Sweet. After they spoke, the bishop got up. "Sisters", he said, "I'm afraid to tell you the odds are against you here, some of you are going to have to find a man and convert him if you want to get married in the temple." I thought, "I'm 26 and it took three years to get this guy to join the church! I don't have that kind of time to invest, I'll take my chances in the singles ward, thank you very much!"
No more than two weeks later, I was talking to my mom. She said that she and my dad had been talking and thought that the experience of having a family of my own was too big a thing to miss. And if I found a good guy who loved me and would take care of me, I should marry him, even if he wasn't a member of the church. So now I was really irritated. I grew up in the church, basically from the time we can talk, we learn how holy a temple is and that one of the greatest blessings we can ever have is to be married in the temple for time and all eternity. It was practically drilled in Young Women's that I shouldn't settle for anything less than a temple marriage. And if you wanted a temple marriage, you dated temple worthy guys. Now what they really meant was, "at least do that until you've turned 25, 'cause after that, good luck finding anyone!" But I guess something started working at me, I think maybe it was the Spirit, Heavenly Father was preparing me. I knew the nice, handsome medical director at work was interested in me, maybe I would give him a chance after all...

Matt and I, just after being sealed in the beautiful Washington DC temple, wahoo!

PS; I forgot to mention this is in chapters, stay tuned...